The Dobbs Court

Abstract

Decades of mobilization preceded the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. Yet while the outcome of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was highly predictable, the decision nonetheless came as a shock to the political and legal systems—and, based on the justices’ first encounters with the post-Dobbs world during the 2023–2024 term, it was perhaps even a shock to the court itself. Women played little more than a walk-on role both in the recognition of a constitutional right to abortion (a decision essentially about doctors) and in the repudiation of that right (a decision essentially about fetuses). But now, in the half of the country where even medically necessary abortion is unavailable after Dobbs, concerns for pregnant women and their fate dominate, and the justices appear no longer so certain that they are finished with abortion. Their work, in fact, may be just beginning.